United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

Re:United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year... by bsanr2 on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @01:35AM (#21811219)

Right. The point that gets missed is that the contention is often less about the nuances of any particular firearm's capabilities and more about the common intentions of their use. EVERY gun is violent in the hands of someone trying to commit violence. Yet, mass shooters (who kill people in a particularly cruel manner, randomly, and that which is difficult for the average person to guard against) gravitate to assault rifles, for whatever reason. So people want them banned. Will that stop mass killings, from a functional perspective? Probably not. But it does remove a step in the psychic progression from normalcy to a massacre. Since the whole problem is a dysfunction of our collective processing of the lives we face, maybe the disruption to that flow a ban would represent is enough. Some say we're afraid of the big scary rifle; I say, sure, and a mass shooter feels empowered by it.

As an addendum, I have to imagine that GRAs enjoy this debate, because as long as we're stuck on it, we don't have to talk about how access to handguns increases the successful suicide attempt rate.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year... by masonic on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @04:11AM (#21811942)

  mass shooters... gravitate to assault rifles

Absolutely false. The vast majority of "mass shootings" are with handguns.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year... by bsanr2 on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @10:57AM (#21814761)

We have different definitions of mass shooters. I assume you advocate strongly, with great investments of time, energy, and money, to alleviate the ones I would say you're including erroneously, yes?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year... by blaser-waffle on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @03:36PM (#21818509)

Slick reply, but a mocking, obsequious attempt to brush the definitions aside changes nothing: the parent comment is correct.

> We have different definitions of mass shooters.

You're almost certainly talking about high profile shooting incidents with broad media coverage, that drive what is essentially a moral panic.

Parent comment is referring to incidents where 3+ people get shot, which often do not make the national and international media, and are predominately carried out with handguns.

The shootings last August that got a lot of attention are a great example. Couple of back-to-back mass shooting incidents in TX and Ohio got a lot of press... even though just the week before something like 34 people got shot in Chicago over the course of 2 days; hardly a word in the press outside of Chi-town.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year... by bsanr2 on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @06:00AM (#21823722)

You're mistaken, as I was simply trying to draw attention to the fact that the motivations, and therefore salves, for a) a mass shooter who enters a soft target and kills strangers indiscriminately, and b) a "mass shooter" who knows his target and catches innocents in the crossfire, differ substantially.

You group the two in order to dilute the focus of anti-gun violence advocacy, but you're given away by how little you care about instances of the latter definition otherwise. If "mental healthcare" is your panacea, it won't help non-suicide handgun violence. You know that, and I know that, and it's then perplexing why you would think we wouldn't notice.

[ Parent | on HN ]